Some of Britain's prime ministers have had an "undignified" relationship with the press, Sir John Major has said.
Giving evidence to the Leveson inquiry on Tuesday, the former Conservative prime minister said that he tried to keep a "relative distance" from editors and proprietors such as Rupert Murdoch when he was in power between 1990 and 1997.
"The role for government and politicans is, to best they can, run the country, the role of the press is to hold the government to account," he said.
"I think once you begin to meld those roles then neither the politicians nor the press are doing the job properly that they are best fitted for."
"I don't think it is the role of the prime minister to court the press and I think it is a little undignified if it is done too obviously," he added.
He added: "I thought too close a personal relationship was probably not for me."
But keeping himself more remote made him an easier target for hostile newspaper coverage, the inquiry heard.
"It is easier to be hostile to people you don't know," he said.
"I didn't inherit the naturally close affinity my predecessor had earned with the Press over a long period of time."
Sir John admitted he had personally struggled with the negative press coverage he had received during his time in office.
Asked if it was true he had been "too sensitive" at the time, he replied: "It certainly would be.
"I would not deny that at all.
"I was much too sensitive from time to time about what the Press wrote. God knows why I was but I was.
"It was a basic human emotion to get a bit ratty about it."
He added: "The Press to me at the time was a source of wonder. I woke up each morning and I opened the morning papers and I learned what I thought, what I didn't think, what I said, what I hadn't said, what I was about to do, what I wasn't about to do."
Asked for his view on Rupert Murdoch, Sir John said he thought parts of his media empire had "lowered the general quality of the British media".
"I think they have lowered the tone," he said, without naming the newspaper he was referring to.
"The interaction with politicians has done no good for the press or the politicians."
Sir John told the inquiry that on one occasion in the run up to the 1997 general election Murdoch asked him to change policy on Europe.
"Mr Murdoch said he really didn't like our European policies," he said. "That was no surprise to me."
He added: "He wished me to change our European policies. If we couldn't change our European policies his papers could not, would not support our Conservative Government.
"As I recall he used the word 'we' when referring to his newspapers. He didn't make the usual nod to editorial independence."
"There was no question of me changing our policies."
Sir John also warned politicians they should not ignore the recommendations of the Leveson inquiry out of fear of the media.
"If at the end of this inquiry … if the recommendations that are made are not enacted and nothing is done it is difficult to see how this matter could be returned to in any reasonable period of time," he said.
"Those parts of the press that have behaved badly will continue to behave badly, the bad is a cancer in the journalistic body it isn't the journalistic body as a whole.
He said the main political parties should not play "partisan, short term party politics" with Leveson in order to "court the favour of an important media barron" who may not like what is recommended.